About:
Lynnea Holland-Weiss (she/they) is a queer artist living and working in Los Angeles, California. They were born 1990 in Olympic Valley, Ca and were raised in Berkeley and Oakland, Ca. Lynnea is primarily a painter, but also works in drawing, dance, printmaking, animation, video and does body/energy work as well. Their work is figurative, painterly and rich in color. They come from a background in dance, which immensely informs how they approach their figurative paintings. Lynnea values somatic ways of processing and engaging with the world and is fueled by what is being communicated through body language. They always return to their own body as a jumping off point. The way our limbs fold, or where we hold weight, is our muscle memory telling our history. Dichotomies, such as love and fear, sky and soil, embrace and longing, warm and cold, expansion and loss, are the tensions at play in their paintings. Experiencing their simultaneity and interdependence is what they find important. Their work resides in the ambiguity, in-between, non-binary, and truly values complexity and multiplicity.
They received their BFA in Painting and Drawing from California College of the Arts in 2013. They also did an AICAD Semester Exchange at Rhode Island School of Design in 2011. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including exhibitions with Pt. 2 Gallery in Oakland, Ca, Galerie Sébastien Bertrand in Geneva, Switzerland, Field Projects Gallery in New York, NY, Anthony Gallery at Theaster Gates Stony Island Bank, Chicago, Il and more. They have been a visiting artist and speaker at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, California and at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan. An active part of their practice also involves public work because they want their work to be an accessible part of our everyday experience. Their most recent mural is at MetroHealth Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. Their work has been published in New American Paintings, Juxtapoz Magazine, ArtMaze Magazine, Heads Magazine and more. And they have been awarded The Hopper Prize, Artwork Archive Accelerator Grant, Innovate Grant, and a SPACES Satellite Fund.
We recently connected with Lynnea Holland-Weiss and have shared our conversation below.
Lynnea, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
One of my most meaningful projects was creating a mural inside a public hospital. This project was organized by LAND Studio for MetroHealth Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio in 2022. It felt like such a special and impactful place to have my artwork because people from all walks of life are there seeking healing in some form or helping others to heal. There were multiple times throughout working on this piece that I was brought to tears thinking of all the different experiences that people in this space could be going through. Major life transforming moments occur in hospitals. It is a place where both births and deaths happen, as well as the complexity of everything in between. My work is definitely about healing, and is also about the duality of life, and the full spectrum of emotions and experiences.
I wanted to make a piece that was an invitation to feel it all and feel held in those moments. The mural, entitled “Embrace,” is of two figures hugging and lifting one onto their tippy-toes. Just beyond the clouds, the magic of a double rainbow appears. This piece is about support, hope and lifting each other up physically and emotionally. I’m interested in how it makes us feel to see a body hold the weight of another body and at this scale it is an all-encompassing feeling. This embrace is a gesture that highlights the importance of coming together. It is about encouragement and together getting through whatever life brings us. The rainbow arching over the figures, against the thick grey sky, appearing through the storm, lets us take a breath with the figures and feel held and hopeful as well. The sky’s invitation is healing. The weightlessness creates a feeling of ease, comfort and encouragement. The dandelions growing through the cracks in the concrete is a gentle reminder of resilience, and that even in unexpected and overlooked places, there is beauty and survival. The two people are in a present act of care and surrender. There is a sense of tenderness and patience in the faces of these figures. They are in motion, adjusting to one another and moving as one. They are present and compassion fills every inch of their skin and posture. The color of the arms switch with one another from blue to red through their embrace. The warm and cool color combinations within the bodies emphasize the emotion, but also allow room for the figures to become whoever the viewers sees them to be, which accentuates their humanity. My work is all about empathy and dissolving the ability to disassociate oneself from another. I am interested in blurring and mending these illusions of separation. All of my work relies on the viewers to bring their own histories into the paintings and find their connection. This piece acts as a meeting place and opportunity to sit with the moment together. It invites the viewer to relate to what they might be experiencing, as well as reflect on our collective humanity.
Awesome – Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My mission is to move people. I want them to feel more in tune with their deepest selves. I want them to remember that they are in their bodies in this present moment. I want them to feel connected to the other humans around them, to the sky above them, to the earth below their feet, and to all the beings and energies in between.
I make paintings of humans embracing, faces longing, limbs reaching and weight shifting. I’m invested in describing tenderness. The figures I paint wear their hearts on their sleeves. They embrace vulnerability. They are grieving. They are yearning. They are loving. They are flooded by their desire to be held in their complex whole truths. They ask the same of us, to be ripe, present and full. I want the viewer to have a direct relation to the figures in my paintings, and be left to feel, contemplate and relate. The familiarity of an emotion that gets conveyed through body language is what I am interested in. Empathy is vital and is definitely the mission driving my work. Expressing multiplicity and our expansive interconnectivity is what drives my work as well.
Painting has the ability to highlight, extend and maintain engagement with a specific gesture or moment. It has a miraculous way of holding a deep saturation of time as well. Through painted layers the past, present and future can exist together. Often through transparency and the merging of figures, I’m exploring this nonlinear and nonhierarchical experience of time. It is also about depicting the intangible, emotional and energetic experience in relation to the physical realm.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
In our society, I think we tend to exploit and exotify artists. We put them on a pedestal and glorify them, but also expect them to not have to earn a livable wage or be compensated for their time because they “love what they do.” Our society loves to perpetuate and romanticize the starving artist. So many artists don’t get their recognition until they have passed away, and after often struggling their whole lives. Their work gains value only after they aren’t the ones to benefit from it. We make a celebrity of artists, but don’t necessarily recognize the true value of what art offers society in a real way. I think as a whole, we need to respect and acknowledge what artists bring to life and culture in a more sustainable way. What would the world look and feel like without art? It is essential to life– inspiration, desire, motivation, reflection, connection, etc. But collectively we don’t always remember how vital it is. We tend to disregard it as frivolous or often it’s the first thing to be put on the chopping block.
Therefore, I want to encourage you to support emerging, young, living artists early before they are established or are no longer here. Support collective art spaces and artist run endeavors. Think about and invest in it like it’s just as valuable and necessary as anything else. Because if we are honest, I think it really is the stuff that makes life worth living.
Also, how about more straight up GUARANTEED INCOME PROGRAMS FOR ARTISTS (like they just began to propose in NYC) !! So in general, let’s continue to support more accessible and unrestricted funding for the arts and to continue funding art programs in schools! <3
Contact Info:
- Website: http://lynneahollandweiss.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lynneahw/
Image Credits
Annik Wette & Brock Brake